Not quite sparkly and not a full update

[stormwindz]

Nothing's gone wrong, I think it's just everyone being sick. I had cramps and a cold. And Nea and Ian were both coughing to the point of throwing up. None of us slept well and the spirit of the day was lacking.

Positives: I did 100% of the cooking and baking myself and it turned out 100% perfect, on time. It was all to Ian's fortjanst as he kept the bums happy and involved while I was busy in and out of the kitchen.

• Cajsa Warg's skinka - quite a small one and I'm glad I bought a second one, which I might make today
• potatisgratin
• kottbullar
• kryddig graddsas to go with them
• Anne-Charlotte's äppelkaka - I've never made this recipe before and the consistency of the batter was unusual so I changed quite a few of the proportions, to very good end result
• brysselkal
• gronabonor
• fruitcake laced with Jamesons (with marzipan/icing). This was part two of Mark's Christmas present, part 1 being the opened bottle of Jameson's (which he noticed and I didn't expect him to!)
• fruitcake laced with Sailor Jerry's (no marzipan/icing)
• gingerbread circles and gingerbread men
• saffransbullar

Along with store bought

• tin of crackers
• cheeses
• gravad lax m/gravlaxsas
• rokt lax
• tin of 'Danish' biscuits
• after eights
• vanilla bean ice cream to go with the cake
• starkvins Blossa
• various fruit juices - still lemondade etc
• coffee
• spiked with irish cream liquor

I felt much MUCH happier after all the food. My cramps were dying down and I'd had quite a bit of paracetamol by then too. I just sat around full and happy and went - ahhh this is why people grow up! So they get to cook only food they love and then feed everyone else to make them happy! :D

Then the gifts began. I felt touched and a little uncomfortable at the sheer quantity of present from Ian's mum and stepdad, and grandmum and stepgranddad. Hopefully Nea and I will be able to go to Fifi's postponed 90th birthday in January and be suitable grateful!

So I got warm knitted socks with bows, the bums and I got matching (pink) fleece pj's. I got a lush box (Smitten! yay!) and a gorgeous purple scarf and gloves, a soft sparkly black shawl. A very... surprising plastic purple watch without a battery in it. A macramae potholder. Moneys from various people which I have many good ideas for. Amazon vouchers (yay!). Box of smellies - scrubs, loufa, lotions. A West Country teatime treats cookbook. And, strangest of all - a pair of glasses. Not my size, not my prescription, and not wrapped. It's either an error, or someone else's that got left and someone thought they were returning to the right person?

The bums got

• a colour doodle (like a magnadoodle but with coloured squares that appear)
• a drum (with a very nice sound to it)
• a recorder
• a whistle
• a keyboard
• five books - one with felt, one with a finger puppet, one with places for photos. She's paged through all of them interestedly on her own.
• how to train a dragon sticker book
• will get - a scooter which we're going to try and pick up in the sales tomorrow or Tuesday
• a pirate shirt
• a jeans dress
• a teaset - pot, cups, spoons, plates, sugarbowl with lid
• moneys
• a piggy bank

And for her birthday she got

• In the night garden annual
• Kittens poster book
• magic paint book (paint with water and colours appear)
• a rhymes book
• another book (can't remember, it's still down at Marks)
• six helium balloons
• a megablocs table with megablocs and a truck
• a postbox with envelopes, cards, stamps, dice
• a tiger!
• utensils set - ladle, spatula, spaghetti spoon etc.
• a bowl of (cloth) fruit
• a box of Thornton's candy
• Monsters Inc.
• a Sully plushie

She's played with everything (except the clothes, which she has worn most of). Not a single present was unwanted. The only one that was, in some ways, inappropriate, was the piggy bank as she immediately bit into it and flakes came off! :( I'd say a good 2/3rds of her gifts were from 36 months + but I can't tell why, maybe that's the unsupervised age? She hardly ever is for more than 20 seconds so I am just shrugging at it. Also the candy - she got a couple of the chocolate covered raisins but noway nohow is she chowing down on bags of sweets.

She is really much older, I feel like I notice a difference or maybe it's just in my head? Such a big girl now.

Will try to update more and post some pics later. For now I must leap into a hot bath and make the most of my time until Ian and Nea come back from their walk in the sunshine.

Mark's pictures turned out far clearer and better so I shall leave you with this one:



DRUMZ by *Fienna on deviantART